thrifty goodness

The sales are peaking around here.  Every weekend the local intersections are announcing a tag sale or two and the older girls and I are usually up even before our good moods are awake.  I often think of their early years and how many Saturday mornings I dragged them to yard sales and flea markets.  I thought I had forever turned them against sales…but luckily they want to go now.  It must be part of their DNA.

These bowls are one of my favorite finds as I have never found them in such good shape.

The girls look for stuff for their etsy shops, mostly vintage clothes.  I can’t believe the stuff they resell—lots of 1980’s high waisted  shorts and dresses you saw your mother wear in 1975. 

I think I might actually use this barbeque tray, it’s big enough to be useful for our large family.  It’s usually so many trips in and out of the house when we eat outside.   We needed to update our grill and decided on charcoal, we are really liking it.  I bought a charcoal chimney for the grill off amazon…I recommend it! No lighter fluid, it all feels a bit retro but the food tastes so good!

PS do you instagram? I’m just starting (freckledhen8) it’s fun!

the hatchery

After a few unsuccessful attempts at hatching eggs from our hens we finally stumbled upon something that works.  Our coop is out back on the hill housing a couple dozen hens.  They seem happy here enjoying an occasional afternoon on the lawn (until an unfortunate incident with a fox taking one lovely girl).  Hadley painted their coop to match the house… she is a nice daughter to do that.

We keep the rooster separate for a whole bunch of reasons but mostly because he’s an arrogant creep.  We created a love nest of sorts in the big barn.

Each day we take the egg from the love nest and write the date on it. Then we bring it up to the hillside coop and place it under a very generous broody hen.  She’s generous in that she gives up her days to lay on someone else's eggs.  She has no interest in laying on her own eggs as we tried that first.  Are you grasping how complicated this was for us?

With two broody hens we can keep a good amount of eggs underneath them.

The other hens sometimes cram themselves in their nesting boxes just to get some credit I suppose.  Even though everyone says chickens aren’t smart, I think they are. I love to sit outside and watch them.  They know what’s going on.

We found it’s best to be patient the 21 days it takes for an egg to hatch.  Let them do their thing, don’t try to move the eggs the last couple days under a heat lamp.  I love opening the nesting box and finding a chick.  After this batch we will pass the rooster on to our neighbor. 

The chicks are so sweet, I’m happy to be their mama.

* Post Script: while writing this post from the kitchen table my 14 year old son has been in and out of the kitchen helping himself to snacks. He’s been growing like crazy almost hitting the 6 ft mark.  I think he thinks I haven’t noticed that he has had all these left overs from the fridge (we had a weekend barbeque):

two chicken drumsticks (ironic on a chicken post)

a hot dog

potato salad

cole slaw

a large piece of watermelon

also two pieces of toast

and he already had dinner! 

a tradition for Father’s Day

Every year as a Father’s Day gift for my husband I try and take pictures of the children.  It’s harder than it sounds!

 

I love looking back through the years and seeing how much they have grown.

Happy Father’s Day to all the lovely Dad’s in your life!

Going Places with Little Bird

 

Springtime is always busy and this one has been no exception.  Each day is exponentially busier than the previous.  Mix all that with post pregnancy hormones and it ain’t such a pretty thing.  But I wake each day and tell myself to be the best I can and hopefully at the end of the day it measures to be good enough.

We added another name to the high school graduate list.  She made us proud being the new kid at school and still making the most of her senior year.  She works at the local ice cream stand and we love to go and harass her there.

Baby Maggie is no longer a baby!

My husband has been traveling, in preparation for the big one he is leaving for soon :(

While he was here we took the baby and escaped to Maine.  It was rainy and gray which turned out to be okay (do I sound like Pollyanna?).  Hadley is here from Texas and played mother to her siblings.  She even made pizza from scratch while having a dance party to the Grease soundtrack in the kitchen- so I hear from the littles. Hadley home + dance music = great fun.

We stopped in Arundel, a special place and Sawyer’s middle name.  It’s funny to me that as a family we have been all over the world but little Sawyer has only been here in New England.  His memories will be so different than that of his brothers and sisters. 

I hope you’re enjoying the onset of summer.  We are calling it the summer of 2o picnics as we made a list of fun places to have our lunch.  Have you got some fun stuff planned? I want to hear about it!